A portal opened in the Dragon Building of Shield, Dorm number 01. It flickered slightly for a moment, as if struggling to maintain its existence, but soon stabilized. A pale white hand, almost like alabaster, grabbed the edges of the portal and forced it open further.

Soon enough, Alan Peccator stepped outside, his appearance unchanged since the seal was broken. He frowned and turned back to look at his portal.

"Is it me, or was it harder to open one here right now?"

Indeed, opening a portal to his own room at Shield shouldn’t be hard. Furthermore, wasn’t it cleaner than when he left it? He didn’t pay too much attention to that; Sage Oliver probably had gotten some staff to clean it. His primary focus was on the former issue. Why has opening a portal become difficult?

Alan spread his mana sense throughout Shield and noticed the issue.

’Oh...’

Sir Oliver had erected a barrier around the school, one that constantly caused the mana within the school to shift and change. To appear somewhat disoriented. Although crude, it was an effective method to stop portals. Although it could hardly stop Alan, who excelled at spatial magic and was a dragon, it would stop many others.

’Is this preparation for the war?’

He thought and was about to extend his mana sense to all of Skolt city when he noticed the door to the bathroom open. A figure stepped out, shorter than him by a few inches, and dressed in a bathroom.

Alan didn’t panic and calmly observed the other person. Who was drying his hair with a towel, he finished, and slung it on his shoulders, and stopped in his tracks, noticing the change in temperature in the room.

’Did I leave the Air Conditioning on?’

He wondered for a moment and then saw the unfamiliar, but familiar person standing in the middle of his room. He paused in his tracks, and both of them looked at one another for a good few seconds.

Alan observed the guy; he had short gray hair and was well built, with sharp eyes, and possessed the metal and lightning affinities. He didn’t need Dragon eyes to verify that much and calmly waited for the guy to explain himself.

After all... this is his room! Why is a squatter here? Can a squatter even get into Shield? And then, it dawned on him. Alan slightly panicked, realizing this may be the new tenant of his room. The top thirty rooms in Shield are always preserved for the top ten most achieving students of each year...

Sabrina had already told Alan he had lost his number one spot... and was somewhere in the top ten. His room hadn’t changed since he was still in the top ten, but that was a long time ago. Alan wouldn’t be surprised if he were in the lower rankings by now...

The situation had suddenly flipped, and beads of sweat would have formed on Alan’s forehead if he weren’t a frost dragon. The other youth calmed down after a moment, and a tinge of realization appeared in his eyes as he approached Alan and extended his hand.

"It’s nice to meet you, Senior. I’m Patrick, the current occupant of this room. Rank 1 among the first-year students. This room was provided to me, and I was told something like this could happen by the Director."

Alan accepted the handshake, clearly asking for more details with his face. Seeing this, Patrick obliged, quickly pulling his hand away, afraid it would freeze.

"Sage Oliver had informed me that you might accidentally teleport to your own room, and if such a situation did occur, I was to inform you that he was looking for you. All of your belongings are with the Sage."

Alan nodded in agreement and asked.

"What is my current rank? Do you know?"

He wanted to know how much he fell... he didn’t really care about the rankings, and was more or less asking just because.

"1000, you’re currently the lowest ranked."

"..."

It made sense... Shield was competitive to an insane degree... Everyone here was eager to rise in the rankings. Sir Oliver wasn’t going to change the entire system just for him. Alan was surprised he hadn’t been expelled... Maybe Sir Oliver had some heart.

He sighed and opened another portal, leading straight to Sir Oliver’s office. Patrick looked at the portal with amazement, his eyes wide open in excitement, and was about to inquire until Alan took a step forward and said.

"Uh, sorry for disturbing you, I’ll be on my way the-’

Before he could step into the portal, however, a grey owl appeared from it and said.

"The principal is not at the campus currently; he will be back later in the day. Please wait until then. If you want, Patrick can give you a tour of the campus and lead you to your room."

It was Sir Oliver’s familiar, and after informing Alan of the principal’s absence, he immediately fled into the portal once more, closing it from the other side by causing a mana disturbance.

"..."

Speechless, Alan stared at the empty space for a while until Patrick said from behind.

"Senior, if you want, I can give you a tour. There are a lot of new additions on the campus, you may not recognize it as the same. May I get dressed?"

Alan silently nodded. He didn’t have anything to do at the moment, so he obliged. He could spend an hour or two touring Shield again. Thinking about it, he hadn’t really ’explored’ the campus a lot.

He literally only teleported to either His room, Sabrina’s room, the classroom, some of the facilities, or the faculty office. Walking around the campus was somewhat of an unfamiliar experience.

Could he be blamed? He could teleport, for god’s sake, why bother with walking? Anyone with his power would do the same.

If you can open portals to literally anywhere, do it!

It didn’t take long for Patrick to get dressed in casual clothes and approach Alan, who asked.

"Is the main square still the same?"

The boy nodded, unaware of why he was asking that. He turned to the door until he noticed a faint blue glow in the corner of his eyes. Alan had opened another portal and gestured for the boy to follow him.

He soon disappeared, and Patrick examined the portal for a while, took a deep breath, and stepped inside as well. The sun assaulted him, and he found himself in the middle of the square.

He examined his body, finding nothing wrong with it. It couldn’t be helped, since it was the first time he had ever gone through a portal that wasn’t a dungeon. It was an exhilarating experience.

"WHAT IS THIS BEHAVIOUR?!"

"Dude, who the fuck are you? You stink, too!"

And then, his ears heard a familiar, grumpy, and old voice that he somewhat hated, and Alan Peccator after that. Patrick sighed and turned around, spotting a grumpy old man dressed in military attire yelling at Alan Peccator, who easily dwarfed him. It was a kind of comical sight.

Behind him, rows of sweating students stopped or fell to the ground, exasperated for breath, taking advantage of the break. The instructor was someone from the military, hired to instill military discipline and knowledge into the Shield Awakened. He was a seasoned awakened at the rank of B.

"YOU LOWER YOUR VO-"

"Ugh, your spit is getting on me! Stinky old man!"

Alan teleported a few feet back and covered his nose.

"Also, take a bath! You reek! Everybody here reeks!"

The smell of sweat permeated the entire area, making the one who couldn’t sweat at all due to his constitution, one that also had an extremely potent sense of smell, reel in disgust.

Alan immediately waved his hand, casting magic. He cast the simple ’Cleanse’ spell a hundred times, before casting ’Breeze’ a few dozen times, and then ’Rejuvenation’ before ending it with ’Perfume’, imbued with the scent of Lavender. It was what Sabrina’s hair smelled like.

The smell of sweat disappeared, the exhaustion in the students disappeared, and a fresh, soothing, and cool scent permeated the atmosphere. With surprised looks, they looked at their instructor, almost frozen.

Alan had done that on purpose, because the instructor smelled the worst, he had cast a simple freeze on him as well... out of spite.

He struggled for a bit, but it was no surprise that he couldn’t do anything. It was Alan who had cast it; the man would never escape unless Alan wanted him too, which he would do in a bit.

Some of the students recognized Alan Peccator, and Patrick quickly approached the Sergeant and explained.

"Sergeant Elliot, this is Alan Peccator. My apologies for this... I had forgotten there was a running exercise scheduled for today. Please blame me instead."

When Alan had asked him if any changes had been made to the central square, Patrick had thought he was asking if anything had been built or demolished there... he had forgotten about the drill.

It was his honest mistake.

Alan dispelled the spell soon, and the Sergeant dismissed the drill, taking out his communicator and informing someone about Alan’s arrival. He bowed slightly afterwards and left.

"..."

Patrick was left speechless, never thinking the abominable Sergeant would do something like that. Then again, someone above him at the Military probably informed him on how to deal with Alan Peccator... once he recognized him.

The news sure spread fast.